Shaping the Future for the Foundation Industries in the UK:

Foreword

Look over any city skyline today and more than three quarters of the man-made materials you see will have come from the foundation sector. These industries provide materials needed by the whole economy. Take the most dynamic digital companies, biotech-labs, and satellite technology providers - none of them can exist without having premises and infrastructure built for them, and building this means concrete, steel, and glass.

Annually worth £52bn and employing over half a million people from all corners of the UK, the foundation industries also include ceramics, paper, and bulk chemicals. They are the bedrock of modern society and will remain so as we create a more sustainable society that meets the climate change imperative.

Innovation was at the centre of these industries becoming the globalised sector they are today but, while all have continued to innovate across the decades, the scale and pace of innovation now needs to increase rapidly. As part of this journey, the Transforming Foundation Industries (TFI) challenge is delivering a programme of interventions designed to scale the pipeline of innovative of solutions, technologies, and research that are needed to enact such a rapid and sustainable transformation.

At the heart of this are forward-thinking companies prepared to collaborate with both those in other industries, and the best that the UK’s academic base has to offer. Breaking through barriers that hinder fast paced innovation at scale and unlocking future economic and social benefits for regions across the UK as well as overseas.

Designed to enable such companies, and the cross-industry consortia they formed, to rapidly make an impact, here we showcase and celebrate some of the inspiring projects that have come through the TFI challenge fast-start funding programme.

Bruce Adderley
Challenge Director, Transforming Foundation Industries